Wednesday, October 16, 2013

How to Create a Great Social Media Customer Experience

These days, when it comes to social media, it is absolutely
critical that you create the right customer experience for both existing
customers and potential customers.

In fact, 77 percent of B2C companies and 43 percent of B2B
companies used Facebook to acquire
new customers in 2012. So, it is key that your social media strategies
engage and retain your existing customers, while at the same time attract fans,
converting them into new customers.

Luckily, sites like Facebook and Twitter spend a lot of time
getting the aesthetics of their pages just right – providing companies with tools
they need to set up communities attractive to the right audience. Still, you
must perfect your company’s own strategy in order be successful. Here are some
tips, according to Social Media Today that will help you create a great social
media customer experience (CX):

Know your Audience

If you want to create a great CX on social media you need to know your audience
inside and out. You need to post unique and specialized content that will
interest and attract the right people – those who can be converted into
customers. Also, encourage your existing customers to follow you on social
media sites by putting follow widgets on your website and putting your social
media handles in sales and marketing collateral.

You can use other social media sites to connect with your customers as well or,
even better, provide a place where they can connect with each other. Create a
Page/Group/Community so that you fans can discuss your company: a place where
you can get involved yourself, engaging your fans with interesting content and
questions.

Perfect your Pages

Make sure you post compelling, diverse, quality content on your pages. Don’t
post too regularly, but still frequently enough. Work out what your fans and
followers like and work out a posting strategy which takes advantage of this. In
addition, be sure that you promote your products enough, but too much as fans
don’t like being inundated with advertising, they want to see content that is
of use to them.

Next, make sure your profile images and descriptions are eye-catching,
interesting and, grammatically correct. Check all the spelling in your posts
and tweets and only post images that fit within each social media
sites’ image parameters. The content on your pages needs to be both
professional and attention grabbing.

And, respond to all the comments on your pages and re-tweets your messages get
on Twitter. Be active and polite: you customers will appreciate it if you
acknowledge them quickly and consistently. Analyze the sentiment of comments
about your company online: if someone is negative about your brand you need to
act quickly so that your reputation isn’t damaged.

Reward your Fans

Reward your fans and followers with exclusive content. Post information about
new products and behind the scenes footage where only your fans can see it.
Send out a new product to you Twitter followers before you send it anywhere
else, or invite them to your headquarters to try it out for themselves.

When it comes to the social CX, it is key to find customers who are willing to
be your social media brand advocates and provide them with a platform to
promote your products. Reward these influential people with discounts and
products or, if they’re very good at what they do, a marketing job.